The invention relates to a closure member for a fuel injector, and more particularly to a closure member construction that may be varied to provide length compensation.
It is known to use a variety of closure mechanisms to permit and inhibit fuel flow through fuel injectors. These mechanisms include needle and armature, ball and armature combinations. It is believed that the method of fabrication to create such components should be low cost, repeatable and accurate. It is believed to be known that previous designs of closure mechanisms either used the armature itself as the length compensator, the needle as the length compensator and or incorporated a more expensive manufacturing method for the compensator component. These designs are believed to suffer from disadvantages including additional manufacturing steps and increased costs.
The present invention provides a fuel injector having a housing including an including an inlet, an outlet, and a passageway for fuel flow from the inlet to the outlet. A coil assembly is disposed proximate the inlet of the fuel injector. A seat is disposed proximate the outlet of the fuel injector. A closure member is disposed in the housing and operable by the coil assembly to permit and prohibit fuel flow through the seat. The closure member includes a strap member that extends along a longitudinal axis. The strap member has at least two radial projections and a central member. The strap member includes an outer surface a distance D from the longitudinal axis. The at least two radial projections having first and second ends. The closure member further includes a sealing member coupled to the central member and an armature member coupled to the second ends of the strap member.
The present invention further provides a method of forming a strap member that is disposed in an closure member of a fuel injector. The method can be achieved by stamping a planar component that has at least one central member and at least two radial projections disposed about a longitudinal axis and forming the at least two radial projections along the longitudinal axis.